Permira appointed advisers to sell it in 2011 at a valuation of more than £700m, but was unable to find a buyer. The company, which has expanded through a series of acquisitions, has had success in recent years thanks to popular shows including Skins, Embarrassing Bodies, Homes Under the Hammer and The Only Way Is Essex.

The £550m price tag values All3Media at 8.5 times annual earnings. All3Media recorded revenues of £505m in 2013.

All3Media will keep its existing branding and management to “retain creative freedom”.

"The executive management team is delighted that All3Media is stepping forward into its new future," Farah Ramzan Golant, CEO of All3Media, said.

"This is a proud recognition of the achievements of our stellar creative companies in making ground breaking, popular, high-quality content. Our new strategic investors support our commercial ambition and value our creative independence. Through their new joint venture, they provide us with world class experience and resources to start the next chapter of our story"

The acquisition will be the latest in a series of British studio acquisitions by Discovery, which runs stations including the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet. In 2011 it bought the independent production house Betty and earlier this year it acquired Raw, the producer of reality series Gold Rush. Discovery recently lost out in the bidding for Richard Desmond’s Channel 5, which was sold to Viacom last week for £450m.

The deal is also a major investment in content for Liberty Global, months after it sold its international content division Chellomedia to the US television network AMC. Mike Fries, chief executive of Liberty Global, said: "This is just the first step in our mission to own and develop content assets that support our core distribution platform across Europe.”

Liberty Global and Discovery will use equity and new funding facilities at All3Media to fund the transaction meaning they are only contributing £90m in cash each to the acquisition.

JP Morgan acted as financial adviser to Discovery and Liberty Global and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer served as legal adviser. Centerview Partners acted as financial adviser to All3Media and Clifford Chance and Shearman & Sterling served as legal adviser.